Chinese internet social networking giant Renren — sometimes referred to as “the Facebook of China” — went public on the New York Stock Exchange Wednesday morning, soaring 40 percent higher in early trading.

The Renren IPO — it trades under the ticker symbol RENN — was one of the most highly anticipated offerings of the year, and is further evidence of the increasingly frothy IPO market. As the economy continues to recover from the worst recession in decades, investors are beginning to pour money into the public markets, and in particular high-flying tech issues. And in that sector nothing has more investor buzz these days than social networks, with Facebook valued something north of $50 billion, Twitter disavowing any interest in going public despite a nearly $8 billion valuation, and startup niche upstarts attracting tens of millions of VC dollars.

Renren hasn’t shown a profit yet — it lost $64 million last year alone — but that also doesn’t seem to be much of a problem for today’s IPO investors. The innovative auto rental company ZipCar hasn’t netted a dime, and yet it raised $174 million and watched its stock price close up a whopping 60 percent in its first day of trading. Same with Demand Media, which went public in January and enjoyed a 33 percent first-day pop.

Renren, which is basically a Chinese copy of Facebook — even down to the choice of some colors — priced 53,100,000 shares at an opening price of $14 each. Seconds after trading began, the company’s stock jumped more than 40 percent, and was hovering around $20 in early morning trading.

Renren, which means “everyone” in Chinese, has over 100 million users, and is popular among college students in the world’s most populous country.

Renren’s IPO is a bit of a blow to Facebook, which has well-publicized designs on cracking the Chinese social networking market from which it was banned in 2009. On the other hand, the company’s offering signals that the public markets are ready, willing and able to accommodate high-flying internet offerings — but Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg and his colleagues already knew that.

The rush of internet companies going public has led some to speculate that there might be a bubble growing akin to the catastrophic internet boom of a decade ago — which ultimately wiped out thousands of companies and investors, after it popped. Is this time different?

Morgan Stanley, Deutsche Bank and Credit Suisse were the offering’s “global coordinators,” according to a company statement. BofA Merrill Lynch, Jefferies & Co., Pacific Crest Securities and Oppenheimer & Co. also got a piece of the action.

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